tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post2054464780068351321..comments2013-10-25T23:22:53.538-04:00Comments on L'Hôte: revolution is the name you give the riots you likeFreddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749983229420234896noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-57063138285309410612011-10-29T07:00:53.312-04:002011-10-29T07:00:53.312-04:00Awesome blog man, the things you have mentioned ab...Awesome blog man, the things you have mentioned above are really informative and are examples of your awesome writing skills and a good blog.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.london-hideaways.com" rel="nofollow">London vacation rentals</a>londonhideawayshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00302202803758722957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-34836914314015597162011-08-18T07:24:21.568-04:002011-08-18T07:24:21.568-04:00Great post!Great post!Scarlett Harris @ The Early Bird Catches the Wormhttp://earlybirdcatchestheworm.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-85978443381260105022011-08-12T22:13:45.046-04:002011-08-12T22:13:45.046-04:00check this righteous paragraph from hari kunzru-
...check this righteous paragraph from hari kunzru-<br /><br />Early in the evening, watching social media, I was seeing variants of the same joke: “I’m in Chiswick/Hampstead/Dulwich Waitrose and there’s a RIOT! They’ve run out of POLENTA!” The smug sense of disconnection (this is nothing to do with me, or my comfortable middle-class life – it is an affair of the poor, in places I choose not to go) was soon replaced by panic. “WHERE IS THE ARMY?” […] How easy it would be to install fascism in this creaky little country! No need to torch the Reichstag – all you’d have to do would be to burn a few more sports shops.<br /><br />it was AMAZING i tell you how quickly supposed &quot;&quot;liberals&quot;&quot; began calling for the deployment of the army, &amp; as though with no understanding of the momentousness of the prospect of its contending with citizens on the streets of the capital.ovautnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-88271596148099405172011-08-12T21:55:30.830-04:002011-08-12T21:55:30.830-04:00freddie, have you ever read john gray? i recommend...freddie, have you ever read john gray? i recommend <i>enlightenment&#39;s wake</i>, especially its three longest pieces.ovauthttp://disqus.com/ovautnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-31095165446613617432011-08-11T13:00:18.292-04:002011-08-11T13:00:18.292-04:00I think Britain should take up the offer from Iran...I think Britain should take up the offer from Iran, who offered to send &quot;human rights monitors&quot; to make sure the riots are &quot;handled&quot; humanely.Brian Mnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-82079513125799270862011-08-11T06:31:18.640-04:002011-08-11T06:31:18.640-04:00The main reason why Britain is treated so differen...The main reason why Britain is treated so differently than the &quot;Arab Spring&quot; is probably the lack of political signs being displayed. Just saw the news here and the journalist said &quot;Not one of them is carrying a sign asking for anything&quot; his conclusion was something like &quot;So they must be thugs who like to rob&quot;. And people are buying it, the riots are an end in itself, caused by angry criminals with too much time at their hands. &quot;They steal LCDs and HiFi-equipment and that&#39;s all they want&quot;. Well maybe it is. But maybe &#39;their&#39; behavior is just a symptom of a society so inequal on so many levels... Just remember Andrew Sullivan describing his vacation in the UK: Basically having been to the right school as a teen gurantess that you know half of the british parliament or cabinet... And those people keep on telling that through hard work you too can become one of them. When Americans speak of the incestious Washington elite, London (and for that matter Paris) are probabyl at least on the same level...<br /><br />On a sidenote: Isn&#39;t it amazing how easily the conclusion in the BBC is made from &quot;Oh, so you understand why &#39;they&#39; are doing this&quot; to &quot;So you support what they are doing&quot;?Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-67072121767723545962011-08-10T23:44:03.746-04:002011-08-10T23:44:03.746-04:00Martin Luther King seems to have pretty much summe...Martin Luther King seems to have pretty much summed up my reaction already:<br /><br />&quot;It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.&quot;individualfrognoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-68171528759186845032011-08-10T18:46:30.731-04:002011-08-10T18:46:30.731-04:00The pretense that, were this exact behavior to hap...<i>The pretense that, were this exact behavior to happen in a regime that the United States is unfriendly with, there would be an equally pedantic focus on which windows get smashed and who gets robbed and whether it&#39;s fair game to throw at rock at cops-- that&#39;s what bothers me.</i><br /><br />Eh, I don&#39;t know why. In the same way that any history is a history of the present, any account of the present is going to be situated in some context, even if that context is at a remove from the events.<br /><br />In other words, the interpretation in the U.S. of riots in London is itself political, and the polis it pertains to is American.<br /><br />In further other words, there&#39;s no Truth about London or the Green Revolution. But, you know, who cares?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-81874275131520300482011-08-10T17:27:22.898-04:002011-08-10T17:27:22.898-04:00The argument that the Parliament is a democratical...The argument that the Parliament is a democratically elected government which, by virtue of some electioneering, cannot possibly merit the same opprobrium as that which is obviously due the electorally validated Ayatollahs - it amuses.<br /><br />The unquestioned assumption that elections also alter the permanence of, well, fairly permanent governing secretariats and bureaucracies - also amusing.Jack Crowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499087036876745723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-5891943781403900102011-08-10T16:52:16.164-04:002011-08-10T16:52:16.164-04:00I dunno...this post doesn&#39;t seem as well thoug...I dunno...this post doesn&#39;t seem as well thought out as some of Freddie&#39;s others. I&#39;m not even sure what he&#39;s trying to say.<br /><br />We can&#39;t pass any sort of judgement of any kind on explosions of public protests because we sit at a comfortable distance that allows us to paper over the moral ambiguities and uncertainties that such situations are always fraught with? Okay, that makes sense.<br /><br />But you seem to be suggesting an equivalence between what&#39;s going on in Britain right now and the Green movement. Why? I know you hate the brand of modern capitalism that is currently practiced in the West, but I fail to see how it follows that violent protests against a democratically elected government in Britain (if that is what&#39;s going on - it really doesn&#39;t seem clear to me) must be judged in the exact same manner as violent protests against a vicious, theocratic dictatorship in Iran.<br /><br />Maybe I&#39;m missing your point.<br /><br />But he alsMRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-39475113694989247952011-08-10T08:01:49.960-04:002011-08-10T08:01:49.960-04:00You&#39;ve got a lot more trolls hereabouts as of ...You&#39;ve got a lot more trolls hereabouts as of late, Freddie. I suppose this is in its way a good sign.Elias Isquithhttp://ordinary-gentlemen.com/eliasisquith/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-56194636316705138742011-08-10T02:35:04.224-04:002011-08-10T02:35:04.224-04:00It is very easy to lump together violent political...It is very easy to lump together violent political actions with those who take advantage of the situation for their own thuggery. Distinguishing the two acts and their distinct messages is difficult, and not the goal of local and international media in reporting on the case of the London riots.<br /><br />If I recall, Egyptian state new&#39;s characterization of events in Tahrir Square are not that different from the BBC&#39;s coverage of London&#39;s riots. Both organizations are trying to support a specific outcome with a predefined message. <br /><br />Judge the London rioters, Somefeller, but realize that the London and Egypt might not be as different as they appear.Michael Gnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-10629816671714650932011-08-10T01:10:23.613-04:002011-08-10T01:10:23.613-04:00No need to worry about your lack of perfect knowle...No need to worry about your lack of perfect knowledge here Freddie; somefeller has it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5902617359729115650.post-21300417585015048342011-08-09T21:54:19.383-04:002011-08-09T21:54:19.383-04:00I don&#39;t know what the lesson here is
You got ...<i>I don&#39;t know what the lesson here is</i><br /><br />You got that right, chief. But here&#39;s one hint - the rioting in Britain has less to do with political unrest than it does simple thuggery and the desire to steal some stuff. But don&#39;t let little details like that stop you from comparing it to serious political activity. And FYI - I know you like to talk a good game about being a socialist and all, but I suspect Marx would know the apolitical lumpenproletariat when he saw them.somefellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15013403004665789644noreply@blogger.com